Bad news: Playstation is starting to block their games from running on Proton. Playstation Overlay is blocked on Linux in Ghost of Tsushima. The same thing happened with the Concord beta.
https://x.com/Pirat_Nation/status/1813138976338800951Open linkView original on sh.itjust.works
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People, read the developers comments:
They strictly say that unfortunately it requires Windows to access PSN integrated features, so the multiplayer will not work because it requires said features. The singleplayer should work though. Since Concord is completely multiplayer, it needs the PSN features that only work on Windows.
So did they code themselves into a corner because of malice or incompetence?
It is well known that many multiplayer games like Valorant do not work on Linux due to kernel anticheat. Unfortunately, this is a part of Linux gaming life.
Fuck installing any game that comes with a fucking rootkit
I don't think you understand how code works. What are you worried about it doing, and why does it need admin permissions to do that?
"Kernel" anticheat isn't really any more dangerous than any other executable you run on Windows. Code from untrusted devs isn't safe whether it has admin or not. Games made by small devs are much more dangerous than anything put out directly by Riot or Valve.
There's a lot of hullabaloo that's seeded and encouraged by those who make money on botting and cheats. It's kind of valid, but it's not a larger risk than installing pubg or among us or any other small game.
If you really want to be secure, you have to separate your gaming and personal machines, at least the OS and drives.
The Windows limitation might even make it more secure in that way, if you're willing to limit Windows to games and use Linux for personal stuff. Even then, keeping drives isolated is difficult.
Remember when Sony automatically installed a rootkit on customers' computers if they put in their legally purchased music CD to listen to, that was a security vulnerability that hackers quickly found and exploited? Pepperidge farm remembers.
Incompetence is just as dangerous as malice, and big companies have shown they don't bother to take the care needed to protect your device.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
I've seen this posted before, this is the first time I've actually read the whole thing. I knew what it was, and what it did, but I never knew about the "uninstaller" part of it.
The fact that they doubled down and made an uninstaller for it that didn't actually uninstall it and ADDED ANOTHER root kit + a backdoor to the system, blows my mind.
I don't think YOU understand how code works. Having a program that you can't verify being run as the highest priority level in your system is a stupid idea. You don't know how secure it is or if it has vulnerabilities because again, it's not open source. They are not even security experts, they are a game development company (which will hire security experts, sure, but the main focus not being security is important) and riot is not know for having a super robust game.
Do you really trust them to release a program that can't be hacked into, which then would give the hacker a way to elevate privileges into the highest security level? Even if you trust them not to harvest and sell private data, you have to also trust them to make an unhackable program.
Yeah, I trust Riot and Valve more than I trust Sony or the developers of Lethal Company or Among Us. Even with higher privs than those other companies get.
Because if PubG is compromised, I'm just as vulnerable as I am if Riot is compromised.
I get the technical difference, but when you combine it with practicality, it doesn't make much difference on one hand. On the other, it does remove cheaters from my games.
If I cared that much I'd have ALL my games on a separate OS anyway. Maybe I will at some point.
What are you talking about!? It makes all of the difference. I know a game can't break my system, I know a game can't erase files I keep under root user, I know a game can't write outside of a very limited set of folders my user has write permissions, the moment you allow games to run on root all of these go out the window.
Sure, because games that do this have no cheaters.... What bubble do you live under? Do you think that games like Dota or CS have more cheaters than Ghost of Tsushima? Literally games that have a competitive scene which is so big that's televised in sports channels don't need root access, but a co-op map on a game does!?
And that's without getting into the fact that client side anti-cheat is a losing battle, you could even have full control of the hardware and software and still wouldn't be 100% secure.
What a perfect excuse to not pay for it!
So are PlayStation consoles running Windows? FFS this is short sighted tying yourself to your competitor like that.
The point here is that the anticheat solution needs to be written for a specific operating system because it runs "outside" the game in a privileged way to try and detect cheating.
So they have anticheat on Windows, and their own consoles will have a different anticheat system that is specific for the console OS.
Running games on Linux via Proton is effectively an emulation or translation layer, and the Windows-specific anticheat is not going to work with that.
If Sony wanted to provide multiplayer support on Linux they'd also have to provide a native Linux implementation of the whole game, rather than relying on Proton, which sadly not many publishers are doing at all. So its technically quite understandable why this isn't possible.
Now, personally I think client anticheat is garbage and they should not be depending on that as a solution anyway, but that's a separate argument!
Isn’t there some way to design the multiplayer to not trust the client? Assume the client has aimbot and all can see through walls, etc. Design it with those things being expected instead of all this draconian pwn the user’s system nonsense.
Server-side anticheat is more complicated to implement, so companies go with the lazy client-side rootkit instead
Server side anticheat also requires trusted servers.
A lot of games are mostly P2P with minimal stuff actually happening on their own hardware.
Good point, I hadn't thought about that
Server side anticheat is mostly implemented in all popular games. An aimbot however can't be detected on the server side, it could just be a user moving their mouse perfectly. There's lots of client cheats like that, which is why clientside detection still makes sense.
You should read about statistics. An aim-bot will be consistently accurate, humans are not consistently accurate. If your aim-bot is purposefully inaccurate then it's useless. Long story short, your cheating has to be indistinguishable from human, which is HARD to accomplish, and if you do you'll lose 50% of the matches against other humans.
Not to mention a game with server side anti-cheat could purposefully send fake data, e.g. send a position for an "invisible" enemy, if you aim/fire to it you get tagged. It can do lots of similar stuff that would make the aim-bot less accurate than a human, e.g. every time an enemy enters line of sight add another enemy just outside of the frustum culling, or send an enemy behind a wall that has no visible parts. Cheaters will act on that information, regular users won't. At that point the only way to bypass that is with external hardware that acts on the same information an actual user does (which also bypasses client side anti-cheat anyways), at that point you have a robot playing the game for you and losing 50% of the battles....
Exactly, and that's why I expressed the sentiment that client anticheat is a poor solution. If you really really want to stop cheating, you have to do it on the infrastructure that you as the game developer have guaranteed and trusted control over, and that is the server.
How do you suppose to block an aimbot on the server side?
Primarily by not sending non-visible information and by detecting unrealistic/impossible motion. If the aimbot has to limit itself to what humans can do, it doesn't really matter anymore.
It does matter though. If you program the aimbot to act as if they were the best human, the aimbot is still going to beat everyone else, same as if it was behaving unrealistically superhuman. But you can't simply ban the best human from your game.
Except we have a few ACs that work with proton. battleye and EAC being the notable examples.
https://areweanticheatyet.com/
The issue isn’t that the ACs can’t work. It’s that they don’t run at the kernel level under linux and so some developers have concerns that the ACs wont be as secure.
Though given how things have been lately with MP games. You have to wonder if theyre even secure to begin with.
Akshually, wine is not an emulator!
I'll see myself out.
Mmn yeah. I described it as a translation layer also, which is more accutate, but I used The Bad Word because more people have an understanding of what an 'emulator' is in common usage and it felt appropriate in this context.
And... Wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator, too.
Ok but why does a game like Ghost of Tsushima need an anti-cheat to begin with?
They're running FreeBSD (Heavily modified).
this is only mildly better then the conclusion jump. I am almost strictly single player, but the ideology of paying full price(which is becoming increasingly common to be 70$) for a game that I won't actually be able to use all the features of... it's not very appealing to me. Granted it isn't fair of me to expect it since the company doesn't advertise it as being non-windows friendly, but it still doesn't mean I need to buy it. If they want my support, they will need to at bare minimum have it be proton/wine compatible, even if shitty support. If I can't mark that box it's a solid not buying. It's a statistics case, if there are enough people like me, companies would change.
I'm not even asking that they make their games specifically linux-compatible. I'm just asking for them to not prevent compatibility.
I understand making games only for Windows because that's where the market share is. But going out of your way to ensure they won't run on Linux is a dick move.
Fuck 'em then. I'll stop playing video games before I switch to windows, but I'm sure there will always be indie devs willing to take my money in exchange for a playable game.
You won’t let us install a rootkit on your system? :-(
Well no multiplayer for you, cheater! >:-(
The lesson here is don't buy anything from Sony because you don't get what you bought. Sony is a dead company. Don't even pirate their shit. Let the corpse rot where it falls.
But the dualsense has such a nice wireless touchpad
Does it? In my experience the touchpad is by far the worst feature of the DualSense.
Any decent controller suggestions if I don't care about Xbox or Playstation controllers?
8bitdo or King Kong 2
Sadly I also primarily use a DualSense, specifically for the touchpad.
But I love the 8bitdo for emulators, and the King Kong for racing games.
My KingKong 3's are good, my only advice is don't switch the triggers into digital mode while pressing the trigger, it breaks the internal mechanism.
However I managed to convince them to send me a repair kit rather than doing a replacement, which worked out really well. They're very easy to repair.
I'm partial to the 8bitdo Pro 2. Comfortable and has two back buttons.
How long have you had yours? I've had 3 8bitdo controllers (iirc, sn30/ Pro/ Pro 2) and none of them work anymore. They also had a ton of connection and software issues leading up to becoming bricks.
I've had a SN30 Pro+ since 2019 and bought subsequent models (2 8bitdo Pro 2s and one wired Pro 2) in 2021 and 2022. My most used one sees multiple uses a week and has traveled intercontinentally with me alongside my Pro from 2019. The only issue I've ever had has been the rechargable battery pack dying but that can be replaced with two AAs or you can buy a new pack direct from 8bitdo.
Hell, my Bluetooth NES30 from 2014 still works on the original battery. The only ones I can't confirm still work right now are my N30s that are in storage.
My 2.4ghz 8bitdo controller is awesome
Sony really doesn’t get it. Their leadership has seemed poor for a while now, I’m still annoyed they closed their Japan studio
Out of curiosity, why are you annoyed at them closing their Japan studio? They have a ton of game credits, but were mostly a support studio. Like, technically they have credits on Bloodborne but I think everyone pretty much agrees that's a FromSoft game.
The only recent original games from them I see is Knack and Knack 2. Personally I thought they were pretty decent and are better than just a meme game, but at the same time they weren't exactly successful hits either. Is there some hit game or series I'm missing here?
And what was left of them was just merged into Team Asobi. Which I find kind of funny because Asobi was originally a team from Japan Studio that was split off.
Japan Studio was one of those developers that were allowed to experiment and take risks with smaller/cheaper titles for the PlayStation platform. Sony seems to be aiming at only making recognizable franchises and safe bets, kind of like how Disney is still leaning hard on Star Wars and Marvel to keep making money. This is a terrible move as they're no longer even trying to compete with the creativity and smaller budget of indie developers.
They created a lot of novel and inventive games. Shadow of the Colossus is definitely their magnum opus but it’s the small weird games they were notable for that I feel Sony is missing at this point. Astrobot getting a full game is encouraging but I think Sony needs to further step back from their carousel of third person action games.
They didn't create Shadow of the Colossus. They were a support studio for Team Ico.
Same thing for almost all of their games. The Astro series is from Team Asobi. Gravity Rush was from Team Silent/Team Gravity/Project Siren (that studio kept changing its name). Parappa the Rapper was NanaOn-Sha. Death Stranding was Kojima Productions. Patappn was from Pyramid.
LocoRoco was an original, but that series hasn't been touched since 2008. I doubt many of the original devs were even still there by 2021. Ape Escape and Legend of Dragon are similar.
Japan Studio has too many games to check them all, but all the ones that I recognize as good and memorable games are from other studios.
They were all part of Japan studio though, at least they left together to create bokeh studio.
That's like saying that Square Enix Business Division 3 isn't Square Enix, but you would never deny they made kingdom hearts, so weird seeing someone going to bat for Jim Ryan.
This is especially egregious when you remember the PS4 and PS5 operating system are themselves based on FreeBSD, meaning the original game was natively targeting a Unix-like OS to begin with. So to then say it won’t run on Linux is a huge middle finger.
No, "based on" doesn't tell us anything. Just that to avoid repeating work they took FreeBSD.
I work on an open source project in my free time. Officially we support Linux, Windows, and macOS.
I had to change ~2 lines of code to port the Linux/Mac code path to FreeBSD. Windows has a completely different code path for that critical segment because it's so different compared to the three Unix/Unix-like.
This is a very specific example from a server side code that leaves out a lot of details. One being that we wrote our project with the intent that it would be multi platform by design. Game software is wildly complicated compared to what we do. The point here is that it should be easier to port Unix to Unix-like compared to Unix to Windows.
I've heard that PS3 games, while the OS was too, I think, based on FreeBSD, ran in a sort of a hypervisor and used some features of the Cell architecture.
I've never read about PS4 and PS5 OS's, and them being Intel-based should mean that it's possibly less exotic.
Of course various unices are almost source-compatible.
It tell us quite a lot actually; the native PlayStation game was running on a POSIX system, on x86(-64), and Vulkan/OpenGL. Ergo, it took extra work to port the game to Windows, when the original title ran on something very close to a Linux desktop.
As far as I know PS4/PS5 don't support OpenGL or Vulkan, they have their own APIs.
No, because the thing that's breaking is not graphics related (which is the major difference between Windows and Unix), it's very likely an anti-cheating measure that's trying to gain root access to the computer, and when it can't it crashes the game. This is not an issue on Playstation because Sony controls the OS so they're okay with giving root access to the game or (more likely) are okay with that part of the code not running while on a PlayStation.
At least that rootkit anti-cheat prevents all the cheaters. There totally aren't any cheaters in games protected by rootkit anti cheat systems like in valorant. Right? Riiiiiiight?
Fuck em. I'll stick with games that work on steam deck and Linux then.
Honestly anti-cheat is dead going forward because much of the new cheats being developed exist hardware powered by machine learning. Competitive multiplayer is already just a shambling corpse, but somehow people haven't caught on yet.
And use someone else's computer
Good to know. I won't buy it. Yoho yoho I guess
That's the simplest answer. See how awesome that card is when no one will buy it because we are fucking tired of hardware locking us on to Microsoft and closed source. Maybe 🤔 sell it to companies? LOL.
this is going to do a better job of getting me to not play their game then they're helldivers 2 scandal. I'm avoiding Windows like the plague now and currently the only game I have to jump back to Windows for his Beast of Bermuda and I don't play that one all that often. There's no way in hell I'm going to even consider buying a new games that won't work on via Proton lol
Funny how all the games that don't work on Linux also want your data must just be a technical thing though sure they aren't being malicious.
Japanese companies have anything other than utter contempt and animosity for your customers challenge (impossible)
As someone who's lived in Japan for nearly a decade now, what are you on about? There are certainly shitty companies, as anywhere, but this is just wrong.
Just the big game studios in Japan are pretty anti-consumer and shitty to their customers.
That is a statement I definitely can agree with in some ways. I think some of it is cultural difference and expectation being different between many western consumers versus Japanese. I think Japanese are far more used to certain practices and won't push back as much and, generally, also make up most of the companies' income. Not that I think that means something doesn't need to or shouldn't be fixed, but what I see from being here.
You ever hear about a small indie game company called nintendo
Yes. You have now named two whole companies but your complaint was leveraged at literally every company in the country.
I've heard how the work culture can be pretty toxic but the amount of thought and care put into every aspect of the experience amazes me. Shame, sony was one of my favorite companies for AV equipment but their newer devices are just not as good as they used to be.
This poor judgement seems to be mostly from the PlayStation decision but I can help to think this is a sign overall company culture shift.
It's like the drop in quality at Toyota resulting in defects never heard of before (airbag defects, melting wing mirors, faulty screens) or the first Honda I've ever owned where the engine had a defect affecting multiple cars in their lineup making it dump gas into the oil.
Stop buying Playstation games, Sony have always been scummy.
Never forget the literal rootkit Sony used as a "DRM" a while back lmao
And that they completely dumped their PC gaming division(?) SOE a decade ago, and expect people to pretend this is their first go around PC gaming and give them slack for it.
Back in PS3 days Sony were the ones that let you install any hard drive you wanted, didn't make you pay for multiplayer, and let you install Linux on your PS3.
But now they are worse overall.
Until they didn't. I got 10$ out of that class action LMAO I'd say when they took that away, that was the beginning of the enshittification of Sony
Might as well say "stop buying AAA games", as they all are made by corporations, who are, as we know, scummy.
But we aren't gonna stop, are we? Like, I don't even play them, I play retro and indie games, but an occasional AAA still slips in.
Pretty much this, yeah. Triple A games used to be the ones pushing the envelope, now they are exclusively just cash grabs.
Dude, speak for yourself, the last AAA title I bought was MH:W at massive discout many years after the next iteration released. I've never even considered a AAA title that wasn't several years old already, that have had plenty of time to show exactly how scummy they are.
First of all, I never said I buy them on release. I pretty much but all of my games on discount. Except for Factorio.
And also, you tell me to speak for myself and then immediately admit to buying an occasional AAA. So turns out I was speaking for you, too.
But most importantly, the point was that my statement will be true for vast majority of people. They aren't gonna stop buying AAA games.
Hmm, when people say "stop buying AAA games" it's usually a sentiment similar to "stop preordering games". A purchase long after release and at a heavy discount isn't really economically relevant, especially after the next product has been out for several years.
When you said you let a AAA game in occassionally, it seemed like you were saying you bought something like GoT when it released on your platform, and that people will continue to do that. Saying that people need to stop buying AAA games is about forcing AAA studios to change, and to stop allowing them to clown around. If everyone stopped buying AAA games on release year, that's already 90% as effective as ignoring the bargin bin sales too.
So maybe you were speaking for me, but I think you did that poorly. The purchases that allow AAA studios to continue being dickwads are about as far removed from my purchases as you can get without learning how to hoist a sail, and even those up for consideration are eliminated 9 times out of 10. Trying to accuse me of funding the race-to-the-bottom enshitification is missing the mark.
Sony already stopped selling their games in my country due to them not wanting to put Estonia in the PSN country selection list but I guess I'll pirate their games even harder or something.
PS4 is jailbreakable up until FW 11.00 as of recently. It's a super easy process and is definitely worth it, for anyone interested
How old is FW 11?
September 2023ish if I'm not mistaken
I should be able to do mine then. I haven't used my PS4 in quite a while.
Do check definitely! There are plenty guides by Modded Warfare on how to do it
If the Baltics and the Balkans form a coalition and invade Japan over this then you guys will no longer have to be a black hole for support.
Headline is misleading since it gives impression Sony is intentionally going out of their way to prevent the game from working through Proton, but this is more the case of multiplayer component not working.
So you are saying that I can run the game but it will show me this error if I try to start multiplayer?
AFAIK the multiplayer was working for Playstation titles, so much that some of them got the verified check and that's supposed to only be given if everything works. So yes, they're purposefully breaking it by adding a dependency on (probably) kernel level anti-cheat, since any other Windows API could be converted by wine (but kernel level apis are purposefully checking if it's being run on wine to throw an error)
Walled garden salesman nr 1, go fuck yourself sony. Gladly there are enough great games these days.
I used to pirate games because I couldn't buy them. Now I pirate games because the publishers are greedy cunts who do layoffs to appease shareholders, shutter studios that make good games, and pull all the shit Sony's pulling this year 🖕
One year Sony installed rootkits on everyone's computers.
They fixed it by making it much worse!
This was an interesting read. Good to know that from now on I should treat official CDs just like pirated content: with caution.
Guess I won't be playing Playstation games.
Thanks sony for helping me not spend money on things I don't need.
"We win too much money so fuck all those gamers"
enshittification machine go brr
wonder how much money microsoft gave them to do this
What in the hell is the point of this?
Ar yar, ahoy and avast!
Already learned my lesson a while back. I bought Horizon Zero Dawn for the Steam Deck. Game is listed as Steam Deck Verified. Froze every time between 10-40 secs into the opening cinematic. Fortunately, Steam is awesome and gave me a refund.
Funny thing is that in searching around for a fix, I found a forum post somewhere that described exactly my problem. Started reading replies and finally realized the poster was on a PlayStation from way back when the game was first released. Good job Sony.
I had the same deck experience but it was always really damn hot during the cutscene and inevitable hard crash. I randomly tried again after undervolting and a bunch of drg hours and the problem went away. sometimes it still freezes when doing a manual save so I have to quick save first each time. It's not a solution though because not every deck can do -30/-40/-40mv
edit: actually mine was forbidden west. I didn't play zero dawn on deck. It's probably notable that similar problems still exist in the sequel.
One more reason for not buying
I recognize how much of an impact Proton has had on Linux gaming to help bridge the gaps in our library, and make the platform more attractive to potential new users.
But this is exactly why I won't ever see it as a substitute for native support, because the important thing is support. If we're not supported, anything could break at any time and we'll be out of luck.
Support is kind of a catch 22. Companies have very little reason to support Linux because their customers don't use Linux, but their customers don't use Linux because companies don't support Linux.
And that's where Proton comes in to solve the catch. Proton is just a stepping stone for wider Linux adoption. The more people we get on Linux the more companies have to support Linux the less users need to depend on Proton.
I agree that native support is the way to go, but we're nowhere near having the user base to even justify native support.
My concern is that Proton isn't even being seen as a stepping stone, but a real replacement for native support. I've heard too comments to the effect of "We don't need native ports anymore now that Proton exists."
I'm happy to get the refund from Valve when scumfuck companies decide to rug-pull like this. If it happens, it's usually long after I've beaten the story and become bored with the game. It's a win for me 🙂
There's so many amazing games on Linux that you'll never have the time to play all of them in your lifetime. So I'm not sure how this is bad news, just means less choice paralysis?
Because the biggest goal for Linux gaming is to get people gaming on Linux. You and me might not care that Sony games won't run on Linux but there are people who want to play Sony games and they will either switch back to windows or not even try Linux. If we want Linux to grow we can't just dismiss issues simply because they're not an issue to us, dismissing issues others have is how we will have the year of the Linux for the next 10 years.
Sony needs to crash and burn
I'm waiting for the entire industry to crash and let indies fill in
I doubt this will ever completely happen. I think Microsoft would turn windows into a full blown console with forced DRM for all games and software with perfect license tracking before sony, microsoft's xbox division and nintendo bowed out.
The only great thing is that indies can be successful without being under a major publisher. Steam kind of has a stranglehold though for no good reason other than the fact they were the first and thus the most popular one. I still remember losing out on sharing half life cd keys with my buddies. Only one could be used at a time online but few of us were online all the time, this was still in the tail end of the dialup era.
Time to finish that last 10% of Ratchet and Clank so I can refund it if they pull this crap.
Use the block function in steam to block all these nasty vidjya production companies.
Sony fucked with helldiver's 2 a month after launch, I couldn't get a refund and also couldn't use the social functions of their game. Wasted $40 on that POS.
Arrowhead-blocked
Sony-blocked
I no longer see their shitty software in my store. You shouldn't have to, either.
Is that just for the multiplayer, or for single player as well?
I thought playstation was a console. Did they mean Sony?
Oh yeah, Nintendo, the company known to release games that will only run on Windows PC!
Nintendo only release their games on their own console...
Microsoft has made zero effort to make Windows more compatible with that kind of portable hardware, just wait until they release their own version of the Deck.
No, Nintendo goes after emulation in general, nothing specific about it being on the Deck.
Don't need to be on the inside, just need to look at the history of their efforts to shut down emulation including ROM websites and emulators on Android and on PC before the Deck was even a thought in someone's mind.